


Crack Me Open, Close Me Back

by Ms_Id



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Broken Bones, Dismemberment, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Procedures, Sibling Incest, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ms_Id/pseuds/Ms_Id
Summary: Papyrus knows Sans has secrets, but  he's forgotten what they are. He's forgotten more than once.
Relationships: Papyrus/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Quarantine led me to replay Undertale. And I know it's 2020. And I know the game is uncool now because it got popular and there's too much Sans angst and incest is cringey and gross....
> 
> ANYWAY HERE'S THE FIRST PART OF AN ANGSTY FONTCEST FIC I WROTE:

Papyrus was not in his room when he woke up, and he was not alone.

The world outside was stirring, the twinkling constellations of gems washed out by the more substantial light provided by the Core. Said light was coming in through the window above his head now. Presumably that was what had woken him, and it was the first thing that struck Papyrus as odd. Daytime and him still in bed? Unthinkable!

What would the dogs think? What would the rest of Snowdin think? Or — the stomach that wasn’t a part of his anatomy dropped — what would Undyne think? Daylight falling on his sentry station and him not in it. That was the sort of thing she would expect from his brother.

Sans. That was his next thought, followed immediately by several simultaneous thoughts that all came tumbling through his skull.

This was Sans’ room.

This was Sans’ bed.

Papyrus’ hand was inside of him. Beneath his ribs, specifically. Sans’ hoodie was off and so were Papyrus’ gloves. The off-white hem of his brother’s t-shirt gathered around the crook of Papyrus’ elbow.

He could feel the magic there at the core of him. Warm but not hot, like a coal in the snow right after the fire has burned out.

Sans’ eyes were closed, his body curled around that creasy ball of blankets Papyrus could never get him to wash. He looked like he did every morning when Papyrus came to drag him out of bed… Minus a hand in his ribcage.

Papyrus moved slowly so as not to wake him, excising his hand while holding his breath in nonexistent lungs.

Slow. Slower. Careful.

His phalanges came out glistening cyan with that slime brothers excrete. He wiped it on his scarf and promptly clenched his teeth to silence a moan of regret.

He was inspecting the stain when a voice grabbed his attention. “’sup bro?”

“NOT YOU. CLEARLY.” Papyrus’ response had been reflexive. His fingers tightened around his scarf as he looked down at his brother. But if Sans knew anything of the compromising position they had just been in, he showed no sign of it. The lights of his eyes were dim, tired. He flung an arm over them.

“what time is it?”

“IT’S— IT’S EARLY. VERY EARLY. I AM NOT EVEN A LITTLE LATE FOR MY PATROL.”

“that’s good.” Sans rolled over onto his side, burying his face into the orb of his bedding.

Papyrus kept fidgeting with his scarf. He opened his mouth a couple of times, but no words came out. They had a routine. Allowing Sans to sleep the day away when they were already late for work wasn’t part of it. “SANS…” he began finally, but he made it no further than that.

“hmm?” Sans hummed an inquiry into his blankets when Papyrus didn’t finish his thought. ‘it’s very early, right? why don’t you give me a shout when it’s only _slightly_ early?”

“BUT-” Papyrus cut himself off again, torn. It wasn’t that he lied. Not entirely. No, it was something else. “FINE,” he huffed, turning on his heel. “LAZYBONES,” he added, because that felt right. That felt normal. It matched the rhythm that made up their lives.

Papyrus put his hand on the doorknob and stopped. He looked down at it. It was still warm. At least it was the feeling he intuited as ‘warm,’ humming up against his magic, softly. Cyan still shimmered in the joints of his fingers.

“papyrus?”

He turned. Sans was looking at him again. The lights of his eyes were brighter. He was looking at Papyrus in that way he did sometimes. In the way Papyrus sometimes saw him looking at a lot of things; patiently observing, appraising.

“WHAT?” But Papyrus didn’t want to know what Sans had read from him. “I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS.” He turned the knob and hurried out of the room, only looking back when he heard the door click shut behind him.

It didn’t make sense. Papyrus never slept in Sans’ room. Sometimes Sans slept in his. Sometimes he’d inexplicably doze off during one of the thrilling tales chronicling the life and times of Fluffy Bunny. Or he would be mid-paragraph, narrating to Papyrus some absolutely fascinating essay about color theory as it pertained to puzzle crafting. He would slump down in his chair, speech slowing until the book slipped from his hand and onto the mattress.

He didn’t usually wake Sans. He was the Great Papyrus. He could read his own bedtime stories… reluctantly… if pressed.

What to do with Sans afterward was another matter. If one must sleep, then they should do so properly. Chairs were not for sleeping in.

Papyrus had attempted to return Sans to his own room only once. He’d made it as far as the spot where the light switch should have been before becoming utterly and thoroughly lost. In the end he’d had to wake Sans up just so he could find his way out of the impossible space that was his bedroom.

Every time after that, he had simply pulled Sans into bed with him. It was a tight fit, but if he slept on his side he found that his brother fit nicely against him. He was still when Papyrus held him close. Nightmares, he supposed, when the magic of him sparked and sputtered, wild. And Papyrus would meet that with magic of his own, gently pushing up Sans’ sleeves to rub it into his arms. The essential stuff of them would find a common chord, a familiar tune to hum.

Sometimes that was how Papyrus woke up, holding his brother against him as he usually would the poor teddy bear relegated to the foot of the bed on such nights. It was embarrassing, yes. But never before had he woken up like he had this morning. That was… beyond the pale.

Papyrus went to his room. He found a fresh pair of gloves and straightened out his battle body. He fell into his usual morning ritual and had to stop himself once he reached the kitchen. There was no time to prepare breakfast spaghetti. Despite the lie he had told Sans, he was late.

Sans… He still needed to drag him out of bed. He could hardly count on him to get up on his own volition any time soon.

Did Sans remember last night?

“GET OUT OF BED, IT’S TIME TO GO!”

Papyrus stood at the base of the stairs and shouted. There. Good enough.

It wasn’t, of course, but he managed to convince himself otherwise until he was out the door.

Snowdin was awake. A couple standing shoulder-to-shoulder with steaming mugs. Monsters beginning their long trek to work, dressed in layers that would be easy to shed once they reached Hotland. One child laughing as they shoved another into a snowbank. Familiar faces, none of which looked his way.

Papyrus didn’t want them to. Any other day, he wanted little else. Not today. Today was all wrong. He wanted a do-over. He didn’t want all of Snowdin to see him tardy and out of sorts.

For the tenth time, he made sure that the side of his scarf that he’d wiped his hand on was facing his battle body. He thought he had gotten most of it off, but some of the monsters in town had sharper eyes than he did.

A shortcut.

Sans had one behind the house. Papyrus seldom used it. Shortcuts were for people who were habitually late. And Papyrus was never late… except for today.

Across the thoroughfare, the couple was looking at him over the tops of their mugs. Papyrus looked down at his feet and forced his hesitant bones into motion, made them carry him around the perimeter of the house.

The door was there, just like it always was when someone went looking for it. He’d followed Sans through before. It wasn’t one of the mysteries about his brother that caused him much concern. The door wasn’t even locked.

The last time he had used this particular shortcut was back in those early days of living in Snowdin, after he had convinced Undyne to train him but before he was familiar with the town’s outskirts. He had gotten lost on occasion but never for long. He would happen upon his brother, shoulders slouched and hands shoved in his jacket pockets. He would crack a bad joke and incline his head toward the open door, and Papyrus would follow him home.

The space on the other side of the door was as dark as he remembered it. A sound like wind came from the blackness then a thud. The door had closed behind him.

Papyrus kept his hands out in front of him as he walked. There was no familiar stocky shape in front of him, no hood to hang onto while Sans half-heartedly complained that he was choking him.

“lighten up, bro. you’re not gonna run into anything— nothing except me if you keep following so close.”

And sure enough Papyrus saw the door on the other end of the shortcut before he reached it. He dropped his hands and slowed his steps and thought again of days past. He and Sans had spent more time together then, back when they had first moved to Snowdin from… from… Where had they moved here from again?

Sans had pushed Papyrus to venture outdoors and meet new people, make new friends… any friends. Papyrus, in turn, had pushed his brother to get a job as a sentry. If Papyrus wasn’t allowed to hole up in his room then neither was he.

No, not in his room.

Papyrus had nightmares of his own back then. He couldn’t remember them exactly, but he remembered waking up. He remembered the glow of the television, volume low. His head was in Sans’ lap, curled up next to him on the sofa because he didn’t want to be alone. Whatever the nightmares were, Sans always woke him up before they got too bad, bouncing his knee to jostle him awake.

Papyrus remembered the rote, almost absent way he comforted him, chafing his arm through the fuzzy sofa throw between them. His attention was on a book of quantum physics, its margins full of cramped, hard to read notes.

He wore glasses. Round frames with a thin crack in the right lens. The crack got larger over time, spidered out until it hurt more to read with them than without them. He stopped reading as much after that, stopped obsessively taking notes, started sleeping more.

Papyrus realized his feet had stopped moving. He shook his head, brought himself back to the present, and pressed on to the door.

It opened into snow and trees. He could see Sans’ station. One of them anyway. The one near his own, superior post.

Sans’ post was looking rather messy, he noted. There was a bag of chips and a couple packets of ketchup that hadn’t been there the night before. Papyrus knew for a fact that they hadn’t. He had tidied up himself, much to his own chagrin. He didn’t doubt that Sans could have found the time to mess things up again, but he was still annoyed that he had. Annoyed and a little impressed it had happened so fast.

“WELL, HE CAN CLEAN IT UP HIMSELF THIS TIME,” Papyrus said, despite knowing that almost certainly wouldn't happen. He paused at the station anyway. Not because he planned on cleaning it,(Not yet anyway.) but because he saw something odd.

Papyrus titled his head, studying the station from a few different angles. There was a handprint there, five-fingered, small, and dull white. He touched two fingers to it and some transferred to his glove. When he brought it up to his face to inspect, the wind caught it. Fine particles spun away with passing snowflakes.

Papyrus shrugged, wiped his hand on his scarf, (That was both sides dirty now. God, he was becoming as slovenly as Sans.) and continued on.

The hand print stayed in the back of his skull, the thought drifting to the front the further he walked.

Everything was so quiet. No dogs. No teens. No obvious monster-made sounds aside from the snow crunching beneath his boots. “HMM.” Papyrus listened for a response, but none came. “WELL, AT LEAST IT SEEMS LIKE IT’S BEEN A SLOW DAY.” Papyrus was perilously close to admitting how late he was, but it would have been worth it to hear a response.

…Any response.

Papyrus’ station was just as he had left it. He kept walking.

He saw no one.

It was getting dark. Why was it getting dark?

It was that stupid shortcut, he decided. Something to do with time and space, something dumb. “SANS,” Papyrus huffed, turning his brother’s name into a curse because that’s what felt comforting. Really, he knew that this was no one’s fault but his own. _He_ had slept in. _He_ had taken the shortcut.

Inexplicably, Papyrus thought back to his nightmares. No one waking him up this time… No Sans… He wanted Sans.

He called him on his phone. No answer. He called Undyne. No answer there either.

Papyrus walked faster. His walk became a run. He nearly slipped on the ice, and nicked his shin bone on spikes while bypassing puzzles. He didn’t mind if someone chastised him. He would have welcomed even laughter at this point. The dogs could tell Undyne what a fool he was being. He didn’t care right now. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

Snowdin was empty.

Only a little while ago, (at least from Papyrus’ perspective.) it had been bustling with life. Now there were only signs of it. Some doors wide open, others shut tight. In the window of the inn, Papyrus thought he saw the blinds move, but he couldn’t be sure. He didn’t pay it much mind for now. He would go there next if Sans wasn’t at home. For once, he hoped his brother was still in bed.

Papyrus was nearing his house. He was a little past Grillby’s when something made him pause. A splash of color. Red. Something else, too. A slipper. Just one. He recognized it.

He didn’t recognize the red on the snow. Something about it stirred the ghost of a memory but it stayed in the back of his skull along with the implications of that small, dusty handprint.

There were handprints in the snow here too. Maybe. Larger than the dusty ones, but not by much. They were clearest where the red was thickest, near the slipper. The handprints turned to footprints. The red pool turned to a scattered trail made pink by the snow.

The trail curved softly and ended at Grillby’s, disappearing into the entrance where the door was open and swinging in the wind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is definitely going to be at least 3 parts... maybe 4. I don't know. I have no idea what I'm doing with my life anymore.
> 
> The body horror and violence warning in the tags begins here. And I won't be tagging this with a noncon warning because I don't really think it applies... but there is some non-consensual imagery in the form of being restrained and the touching of SOULS.

Papyrus had never liked Grillby’s.

Right now it was deserted, quiet and still. No jukebox music or noisy patrons. No greasy junk food smells.

There were a few broken bottles on the floor and snow that had blown in from outside. A chair was overturned. Papyrus could see the red edge of a handprint where it looked as if someone had tried and failed to brace themselves against it. Not far from there, the trail he had been following ended.

“sans?”

A familiar shape sat on a stool, back broad and blue. It looked like he was leaning on the bar, his head in his arms. A longer look and his posture appeared less restful. He was folded in on himself, huddled shoulders rising and falling with shaky breaths.

“sans?” Papyrus called again, but he didn’t think Sans heard him. He could barely hear himself.

Papyrus closed the distance between them in three strides. “SANS?” he asked and put a hand to his brother’s shoulder.

Sans flinched away from him suddenly and violently. He spun around, his eyes startled pinpricks set in sockets spread wide. “papyrus, what—” and then he was falling.

Papyrus surged forward, gathering Sans to his chest and easing him to the gritty floorboards.

“papyrus,” Sans started again, but it was a gurgle of a sound, unsustainable for more than a few syllables.

Papyrus took his brother’s skull in his hands. There was more red here too, coming from his mouth. It was so bright against bone. He pushed his thumbs through the wetness, bones rattling as his hands shook.

Blood. It was blood. That was the word for it. Papyrus wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. There was more of it on his front. Papyrus found it when he pushed apart his brother’s jacket. His white shirt was dark and heavy. It hugged the curves of his bones, rising and falling when his ribcage expanded and compressed with uneven breaths. There was a valley at the center of it all, a diagonal line where something had gouged through fabric and bone.

“OKAY. THIS WILL BE OKAY,” Papyrus said, more for himself than for Sans. He needed to center himself. He needed to be calm and collected and wouldn’t be either if Sans wasn’t going to be okay.

He raised a hand and CHECKED him.

**0.5… 0.4… 0.5…**

Sans seethed a hiss of frustration through his teeth. It occurred to Papyrus that he had been resigned before. Now that he saw Papyrus here, he was calling on depleted stores of magic to keep his perilously low HP from ticking lower.

“I CAN HELP. HANG ON.” He shifted his brother across his lap, gently. He cupped a hand over his chest. Theoretically, any monster could heal. At least to some extent. It had never been his area of expertise, but he poured all of himself into it now.

Sans’ breathing became a little less labored. A few seconds later, he found his voice. “what are you doing here?”

“HELPING YOU. HUSH. YOU NEED TO FOCUS ON THIS TOO.” If Papyrus could just stabilize his HP, he could move him. There was someone at the inn. He could take him there, and then he could go find Undyne. She would know what to do.

Sans rarely took Papyrus’ advice. Evidently, that wasn’t going to change now. “where were you?”

The question struck Papyrus hard. He winced. “I TOOK A SHORTCUT THIS MORNING, BUT IT WASN’T A SHORTCUT AT ALL. IT TOOK A VERY LONG TIME, AND… i don’t know what happened. i’m sorry. i should have been here. i’m so, so sorry.”

“took the scenic route, huh?” Sans chuckled. He was smiling. He was always smiling, yes, but right now he seemed almost happy.

“sans… SANS, IF THIS IS A JOKE, IT IS NOT EVEN A LITTLE FUNNY… is it a joke?”

But Sans didn’t have to say anything. Papyrus’ answer came from the healing magic pouring out of him while Sans’ HP sat still.

**0.4… 0.4… 0.4…**

“it’s okay, bro. you couldn’t have done anything.”

“BUT-” No, he wouldn’t argue or ask questions. All of that could come later. “I NEED TO FIND HELP.” He was healing as best he could, but it wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t keep this up indefinitely.

“none of this is your fault. none of this is ever your fault.”

Papyrus gathered Sans into his arms. Keeping one hand near the wound across his chest was awkward, but he managed. Finding the strength to stand was another matter. Between his depleting stores of magic and the sinking dread dragging him down, it was a struggle initially.

Sans grunted but didn’t argue. He leaned in, resting his skull against Papyrus’ scarf. “i’m glad you’re here.”

Papyrus found his footing. Sans felt too light in his arms.

**0.3… 0.3… 0.3…**

“i’m really glad you’re here.’ Sans laughed again, a sound more manic than mirthful this time. “i’m sorry.”

“IT’S OKAY.” Papyrus spoke and then he hesitated. Why had he accepted Sans’ apology like there was anything to forgive?

_~~Papyrus walked out the door to Grillby’s and into the snow. There were no faces in the windows, but he could feel eyes on him. He called for help, but he didn’t know what kind he needed. He didn’t know what could fix this. Sans felt weightless, insubstantial. He had worked one hand beneath Papyrus’ scarf. He was touching the vertebrae above his clavicle and he was saying something. Papyrus felt guilty because he couldn’t make out the words over his own shouting.~~ _

_~~Eventually, the door to the shop opened. The shopkeeper crept out, body low and ears high. She darted over to where Papyrus had sunk down to his knees in the snow and the newly settling dust. She tried to pull him to his feet, her voice far away but kind.~~ _

_~~Papyrus didn’t want to move. He wasn’t sure he could. Eventually, the shopkeeper apologized, squeezed his shoulder, and went back inside.~~ _

~~_The dust settled and Papyrus was alone._ ~~

“-come back. papyrus?”

Papyrus blinked. He was back in Grillby’s. Sans was in his arms, and he was going to the door.

He didn’t need to go out there. It wouldn’t help. What would?

**0.3… 0.3… 0.2…**

Papyrus knelt. Sans gave him a questioning look, but said nothing as his brother laid him down on the floor. Papyrus took him in. He spread his jacket open and looked at the wound he was trying and failing to heal.

There was so much red… But also… Blue?

It was on his gloves too, that cyan sheen from this morning.There was more of it. It was mesmerizing. It seemed to speak to him. Not in words, but in the way it caught the light, the way reflections bounced off of it.

_Do you remember?_ it seemed to ask.

No.

Not a question, a statement: _You remember._

* * *

_“STOP IT!”_

_Sans was his brother, but Flowey was his friend. He didn’t want either of them hurt. Why was this happening?_

_Flowey howled as a blast of energy ripped through leaf and stem, a sound that echoed off the snowy cliffside. Sans raised a hand, leveling a second attack in his direction._

_“SANS, NO!” Papyrus raised a wall of bones between them._

_Sans dropped his arm and wheeled around, startled. As soon as the wall had gone up, Flowey had shot down into the earth. Sans’ left eye cycled colors as he scanned the snow_

_Papyrus ran to him. “LET HIM GO. HE DIDN’T MEAN IT.”_

_Sans looked down at Papyrus’ hand on his wrist. He tried to shake him off, but Papyrus didn’t let go. “stay back.”_

_“I WILL NOT.”_

_“i’m serious.”_

_“SO AM I. I’M SURE THIS IS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. LET ME TALK TO HIM. I’LL—”_

_A flash of green as vines shot from the snow. Sans tried to get out of the way, but Papyrus still had him by the wrist._

_Another vine hurtled towards them. Papyrus let go of his brother. But Flowey had him now and Flowey wasn't letting go. When Sans dodged, his left shin remained, dislocating with a snap and then a crunch as Flowey compressed what had been left behind._

_Sans fell a few feet away. He raised his arm again, and a blaster hovering nearby whined with the promise of his next attack._

_Another vine. Another snap. Independent of him, Sans’ raised arm fell into the snow. But not before another blast hurtled towards Flowey._

**…FILE 6 LOADED**

_“STOP IT!”_

_Sans was his brother, but Flowey was his friend. He didn’t want either of them hurt. Why was this happening?_

_Papyrus held on to Sans and Flowey snapped his spine._

**…FILE 6 LOADED**

_“STOP IT!”_

_Sans was his brother, but Flowey was his friend. He didn’t want either of them hurt. Why was this happening?_

_Papyrus held on to Sans and Flowey took his skull._

**…FILE 6 LOADED**

_“STOP IT!”_

_Sans was his brother, but Flowey was his friend. He didn’t want either of them hurt. Why was this happening?_

_Papyrus held on to Sans, and his brother came apart._

**…FILE 6 LOADED**

_Flowey’s petals drooped and his leaves trembled. “I need more save slots,” he groused to himself._

_Flowey looked bad. Sans looked worse. Flowey had won the fight, but he still looked displeased with the margin by which he had done so._

_“FLOWEY…” Papyrus’ voice trembled. He took an uncertain step towards his friend. “FLOWEY, PLEASE LET HIM GO…”_

_He’d been so small before. He was monstrous now. His eyes rolled in Papyrus’ direction, and he smiled. “Oh, Papyrus. You’re such an idiot.” He wheezed a sigh. “I like you, though. I really do… Your brother, though.” Flowey’s expression darkened, and his attention turned to Sans. “I don’t much care for the smiley trashbag.”_

_Sans had only ever had 1 HP. It was a wonder he wasn’t dust yet. For all the violence he’d inflicted, Flowey was being so grotesquely gentle with him._

_“DON’T DO THIS… please don’t.”_

_Flowey’s vines undulated. Thin green tendrils wove over and under Sans’ ribs. They circled his spine. They laced his sacrum after Flowey was done unwrapping him like a Gyftmas present, parting his jacket and peeling his shirt away in strips to have easier access to SOUL down inside._

_Papyrus could see Sans trembling with anger he couldn’t spend. His jaw worked soundlessly around the vine between his teeth. Cyan and yellow flickered behind the same vine as it wound out through his left eye socket. It was light that was mirrored in his chest, in the SOUL Flowey was carefully working his way towards. He held it with care as he plucked the last limb from Sans’ body. “I love him not,” laughed Flowey, tossing the arm aside. It turned to dust before it hit the ground. “No, not at all.”_

_And then Flowey pushed and he pulled. The vines tangled through Sans all moved at once and he bloomed. His sternum crumbled. His ribs spread wide and plant life tumbled out. Released, Sans fell back into the snow, falling without his SOUL. Flowey kept that, balancing it thoughtfully on a leaf._

_Papyrus moved. He sent several bones flying as he ran. Flowey shifted then gave a surprised yelp as the leaf holding Sans’ SOUL was yanked from him._

_Papyrus had no plan. He couldn’t fight and keep Sans safe. He held the SOUL close and crouched protectively over what remained of his brother. Bones materialized and hovered before him. Papyrus kept them steady, not sure what he would do next if Flowey called his bluff._

_For what felt like a very long time he knelt there. Sans’ SOUL floated where he had it cupped between his hand and his chest, pulsing slowly, warm. He watched Flowey tense and narrow his eyes. He watched his friend bare fangs he’d never known he had._

_But then Flowey’s expression shifted. Papyrus thought for a moment the expression it shifted to was regret. But that was probably wishful thinking. “This timeline is a mess.” Flowey curled his remained leaves in as he began to retreat back underground. “I’m going to try something else.”_

_Flowey disappeared. There was nothing but a large stretch of snow and charred earth, a few felled trees in the distance. He was gone._

_Papyrus spun to face his brother, but any urgency he was feeling drained almost instantly. “OH…” Papyrus’ strength left him, gravity took him. He laid down beside his brother. “…oh.”_

_In his hands, Sans’ SOUL guttered like a candle. It was getting dark. The wind was picking up like it always did around this time in the evening._

_Sans’ jacket was nearby. Papyrus pulled it over both of them. It was hardly ideal, but it was better than being entirely exposed. He didn’t want anyone investigating the commotion to happen upon them. There wasn’t anything they could do. Not even Papyrus was optimistic enough to think otherwise._

_And, God, he was ashamed. He was so, so ashamed._

_“I’M SORRY.” Papryrus seldom had cause to apologize to Sans, but for some reason the words felt familiar._

_Sans’ SOUL lit up the the dark space between them. The lights of his eyes were dull and deeply set. Papyrus wanted to hold him but was too afraid to try. It looked like it hurt. It looked like he’d crumble._

_He held the SOUL close instead, whispering to it, “i’m sorry, i’m sorry, i’m sorry.”_

_Inexplicably, over his sobbing, Papyrus thought he heard a response. Not from Sans’ SOUL but from his own. Beneath his battle body, beneath his ribcage, his magic pulled at Sans’._

We can help, _it seemed to be saying._ We’ve done this before.

_Papyrus wasn’t actually used to removing his battle body. He fumbled with it. Sans’ jacket slipped from his shoulders and, for a moment, he was sure that it was over, that the wind had snuffed out the last of the heat left in his brother’s SOUL._

_But it hadn’t. The heart glowed bright and hot. If Papyrus had skin, he was sure it would be burning him._

_And then another light, another source of heat. It was coming from behind his own ribs, orange light pouring out between the gaps._

_Papyrus touched a gloved hand to his sternum and felt his SOUL pulsing beneath it. “I KNOW WHAT TO DO. I CAN HELP,”_

_For the first time since being dismantled, Sans tried to say something. His jaw was irreparably fractured. Papyrus didn’t have time to try and puzzle out what he was saying. Whatever it was he was trying to communicate, that would have to wait._

_“I KNOW WHAT TO DO,” he repeated, steeling himself for what had to be done. “YOU WON’T DIE.”_

_And Sans didn’t._

* * *

Countless timelines later, sitting on the floor of Grillby’s, looking down at his brother… he remembered what needed to be done.

Like before, Papyrus removed his battle body. Like before, Sans tried to say something to him. This time, his jaw wasn’t broken though. Papyrus couldn’t pretend he didn’t understand what he was saying.

“don’t. please don’t do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will likely take a bit longer, since I GUESS I need to get back to my dayjob and make a dent in some work there.
> 
> Kudos are great, but comments really make my day. Looking at the stats, I know many people aren't reading this-- which sucks, but I expected it. So any feedback at all encourages me to keep going and actually get the story out of my daydreams and onto the page.
> 
> I started a Twitter I don't really know what to do with: https://twitter.com/MsId38783604 (I miss fandom. I'm so lonely.)
> 
> And I'm 110% sure there's no demand for it, but here's an abridged version of my writin' playlist for this particular fic: https://tinyurl.com/yb889j27


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 3 of... I give up. I have no idea how long this is going to be.
> 
> Formatting this was a nightmare. God help me if the wingdings don't even show up. I tried.

**0.2… 0.1…**

Sans’ HP ticked lower as he tried to crawl away. Or squirm, rather. It was generous to call it a crawl. Regardless, it was doing his dwindling HP no favors.

“SANS.” Green fell from Papyrus’ fingers, imparting healing as he pulled his brother back. “SANS, PLEASE. LET ME HELP YOU.”

“i don’t-” Sans paused to breathE and to attempt to drag himself a few more centimeters away from Papyrus. “-want you to help me. i don’t—” His magic spiked.

“DON’T YOU DARE.” Papyrus grabbed him by the shin. Sans probably didn’t have the energy to teleport himself. He _certainly_ didn’t have the energy to bring Papyrus along for the ride.

“i don’t want this.”

**0.01**

Bone dissolved like spun sugar beneath Papyrus’ palm. He let go. There was nothing else he could do. “YOU PROMISED ME.” He sank down on his knees. “I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT YOU PROMISED ME, BUT YOU DID, AND… I…” Papyrus looked around at the empty interior of Grillby’s. It was so quiet inside and out. “I DON’T THINK I’M SUPPOSED TO BE HERE… and i’m scared.”

Sans stopped. For a moment, Papyrus thought that was it, that the last of his HP had been spent trying to get away from him. But then he laid back down, back to the floor. He pulled the edges of his jacket apart again.

Papyrus got to work before Sans could change his mind. He pushed his shirt up, exposing the wound to the air. Through the blood, Papyrus could the shape and length of it. Deep. Fragile. Scored like paper packaging made to be punched through. So he did.

Sans squirmed, but this time he wasn’t trying to get away. His hands scrabbled at the floor, eggshell ribs expanding and contacting and fighting for breath. When he exhaled, it was his own own dust.

“I’VE GOT YOU.” Papyrus cupped his hands around Sans’ SOUL. “i’ve got you.”

Papyrus rested a hand over where his own SOUL sat, locked tight in its bony cage. It was more secure in there than it looked. Getting it out required effort and a considerable tolerance for pain.

Papyrus didn’t like the idea of doing anything to his brother that he wouldn’t subject himself to as well. Besides, he had always been the physically hardier of the two. He could take it.

He summoned one long, thin bone between his ribs. He twisted it.

Sans made a sound more pained than Papyrus did, turning his head to one side so he didn’t have to look. It didn’t hurt as much as he had anticipated, though. It was a familiar kind of hurt.

He didn’t dare let go of Sans’ SOUL, but he let his own hover. He looked closely at it. Bright, hot, splashes of orange and yellow arcing across the surface like a glossy picture of the sun from a book Sans had once shown him.

It was his entire being floating there in front of him, but there was something else in there too. Papyrus looked carefully until he saw it. A string of ones and zeroes. There were several, but Papyrus was fairly certain that he only needed the one.

✌︎☠︎⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎ 🏱︎✋︎☜︎👍︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ☟︎✋︎💣︎

Papyrus let his own SOUL float back to where it belonged. He raised Sans’. Schools of cyan and yellow binary already swarmed across its surface. Papyrus added another string of yellow.

Sans moaned softly and rolled onto his side, bringing a hand up to his empty chest. Papyrus held the SOUL itself. He didn’t trust Sans with it.

He didn’t like that he didn’t trust him with it.

Papyrus stretched out beside his brother. He bowed his head against his back and put an arm around his waist. When Sans sank into the metadata, Papyrus went with him.

Grillby’s folded in half as Snowdin curled around it, into Waterfall, into Hotland, into New Home. The Underground collapsed in on itself and then it was gone.

Everything was gone.

Almost.

They both were and weren’t in the void. They were in some sort of in-between space populated by letters and numbers and symbols. They were hard to see, black on black. Different shades of darkness. They were there, though. They were definitely there.

“WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE.”

“uh huh.”

Papyrus huddled closer to his brother. He clung to him. Weightless in all this empty space, he was terrified that they’d spin away from each other somehow. He was terrified that he would be alone.

Timelines. Resets. Other worlds. “SANS…”

“it’s fine, papyrus.”

“THIS IS MOST CERTAINLY NOT FINE.” Papyrus looked around the endless blackness. “THIS IS… THIS IS… kind of scary, actually.” He was lying. This was extremely scary.

“someone will reset eventually.”

Sans’ answer hung in the air. (Or, at least, the lack of it.) There was an unmistakable tension. Sans didn’t want to talk. Papyrus could feel it in the SOUL he still had in his hand.

“BUT… WHAT IF THEY DON’T?”

“i guess it’ll just be this forever then.”

Papyrus’ bones rattled with a shiver. “ARE YOU…” -mad at me? That’s what he wanted to ask, but he already knew the answer. Sans’ SOUL was telling him that as well. “IT’S JUST… I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE I WAS SUPPOSED TO DO.”

“got it.”

“I REALLY DON’T FEEL LIKE I DID ANYTHING WRONG.”

“great.”

“WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO? JUST LET YOU DIE?”

“Yes!” Sans jerked away from Papyrus. He turned on him.

The volume of his voice and the violence of the movement startled Papyrus, but he still managed to grab onto the edge of his jacket. Hopefully, he didn’t take it off to spite him. It didn’t seem like something Sans would do, but anything felt possible right now. “THAT’S NOT FAIR. I WOULD HAVE BEEN ALONE. YOU’RE… you’re not supposed to die first.” That was it. That was the promise he had dimly recalled back in Grillby’s. He couldn’t remember when it had been made, but he knew that it had. He recalled it in pieces…

_Papyrus on a tile floor, on his knees._

_He flung open drawers and cabinets. He pulled out papers and pictures and blueprints and he laid them out frantically at Sans’ slippered feet.  
_

_His brother was looking down at him, sockets wide, brow furrowed, sad._

_Behind Sans, in the open door, Flowey sat in the snow, peering over the top step. There was an uncertain smile on his golden face._

“I do.” San’s voice drew Papyrus out of his memories. It was unusually loud and strained and… he was crying. This wasn’t a side Papyrus saw of his brother often. His discomfort must have shown on his face because Sans took a moment to close his eyes and collect his thoughts. When he continued, there were no longer any tears. His voice was quieter, but it trembled with his efforts toward restraint. “i always do… i try to let you… i just thought maybe this time… “ Sans shook his head. “nevermind.”

“TELL ME.”

Sans stared at his brother for what was either a very long time or no time at all. (Papyrus hadn’t a clue how time worked in the void.) Finally, he acquiesced. “i thought the kid had killed you already. i was just sitting there waiting to die alone, and then you show up all of a sudden and…” San fidgeted. He looked away from Papyrus and rubbed at his arms through his jacket. ‘i dunno. it was nice.’

Papyrus remembered Sans laughing in his arms, telling him how glad he was, apologizing. No need for that apology now.

Sans’ expression darkened. He nodded to the SOUL cupped in Papyrus’ hand. “but then you did that. i would have rather died alone.”

Papyrus flinched. “BUT THEN… THEN IT WOULD BE JUST ME OUT HERE.” He threw another reluctant look around the vast emptiness. The thought alone was chilling.

“i think you would have died when the timeline was deleted.”

“OH.” That also sounded terrifying… Though, maybe slightly less terrifying than being lost to the void. “WE PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT THEN.”

“probably.”

“BUT YOU AGREED WHEN I SAID WE HAD BEEN HERE BEFORE, SO—” Papyrus stopped. He looked at Sans’ SOUL, at the yellow lines of code weaving over cyan. Had he put those there? Did each string represent another time he’d managed to catch his brother before he turned to dust? Another time he’d forced him to keep his promise? Healing magic wasn’t enough, but this… Whatever mysteries lurked inside their SOULS was stronger than that, more persistent.

✌︎☠︎⚐︎❄︎☟︎☜︎☼︎ 🏱︎✋︎☜︎👍︎☜︎ ⚐︎☞︎ ☟︎✋︎💣︎

👎︎✋︎☝︎✋︎❄︎✌︎☹︎ ✌︎👎︎☼︎☜︎☠︎✌︎☹︎✋︎☠︎☜︎

😐︎☜︎☜︎🏱︎ ☝︎⚐︎✋︎☠︎☝︎

Papyrus wondered if there was any cyan in his own SOUL. He hadn’t seen any. Had there been a time when all of those little strings had been split evenly between them? They must serve a purpose.

_Papyrus was in Sans’ room, next to the mattress but not on it. His knees were drawn in and his head was in his hands. His ribs were carefully cut, dark, and empty. At the edge of his vision, he could see Sans working, his hands delicately unwinding cyan from Papyrus’ SOUL, then yellow._

_He should have told him to stop at the yellow, but he didn’t. After today, he might not have stopped him if he wanted to take it all._

_Papyrus hunched lower, focusing on carpet fibers, a discarded sock, anything. Guilt pressed down on him hard._

_“hey, it’s all right,” Sans said when he returned Papyrus’ SOUL to where it belonged. It felt lighter, but the rest of him still felt heavy. “look at me.”_

_It took Papyrus a very long time to force himself to move._

_Sans waited. He had always been good at waiting. He took Papyrus’ upturned face in his hands and Papyrus broke._

_“I’M SORRY. I THOUGHT I COULD, BUT— I CAN DO IT. I KNOW I CAN. JUST ONE MORE RESET AND I’LL TRY AGAIN.”_

_“if that’s what you want, then yeah. sure.” Sans touched his forehead to Papyrus’ with a playful hollow_ thunk _. He chuckled. “take all the time you need. We’ve got plenty of it.”_

Back in the void, Papyrus had Sans’ SOUL in the palm of his hand. His own chest no longer hurt, but he knew that it was still open. He could take his own SOUL out now. He could retrieve his yellow. He could even take some of the cyan, make Sans’ SOUL a bit lighter for a while.

He should do that.

He should.

“DO YOU REMEMBER EVERYTHING?” Outside of a fixed timeline, Papyrus’ own memory felt more accessible. Thoughts and images crept in and out, things he couldn’t imagine ever forgetting though clearly he had and likely he would again.

Sans had gone very still and his eye sockets were empty. Papyrus thought he might be asleep until he finally responded. “no.”

“BUT YOU REMEMBER SOME THINGS?”

“sort of.”

Papyrus started to ask what he meant, but he thought he knew. What he was doing now wasn’t remembering. Not exactly. It was a box of ghostly puzzle pieces. You couldn’t touch them. You could only dump over the box and hope they landed in the right order.

“i know enough to know that i’ve tried my best, and my best ain’t good enough.”

“DO YOU THINK MY BEST WOULD BE GOOD ENOUGH?”

The lights of Sans’ eyes flickered on just to regard Papyrus with a singularly nonplussed look.

“I DIDN’T MEAN IT LIKE THAT,” Papyrus said quickly, though even he wasn’t sure how else he could have meant it. “IT’S JUST THAT WE HAVE DIFFERENT SKILL SETS AND STRENGTHS AND MAYBE I COULD—”

“i’m gonna go float over there for a while.”

“WAIT!” Papyrus barely caught Sans by the hood of his jacket after the latter kicked lightly off his knee to propel himself away. Papyrus nearly lost hold of Sans’ SOUL in the process. There were a tense few moments where he fumbled with both before he had them secure. “SANS PLEASE BE CAREFUL. I DON’T KNOW WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I LOST YOUR SOUL IN THIS PLACE. WE SHOULD PROBABLY PUT IT BACK IN YOUR CHEST, ACTUALLY.”

“i don’t want it.”

“SANS, I… I DON’T THINK THIS IS A SITUATION WHERE YOU CAN— I MEAN, I’M FAIRLY CERTAIN THIS _IS_ YOU. I’M NOT SURE HOW LONG I CAN JUST HOLD ON TO IT FOR YOU.”

“well, start a timer.”

“SANS, I DON’T HAVE A TIMER. WE’RE IN THE VOID.”

“hand it here then.”

Papyrus looked at Sans’ outstretched hand and then down at the SOUL. “I THINK THAT MAYBE I SHOULD PUT IT BACK FOR YOU.”

“right. you’re the one that has the final say on what i do with it, after all.”

“I DON’T-” Papyrus sighed. “SANS..” He pulled at San’s hood until he had him close. Sans fit against him as neatly as he always did. Perhaps even better, his upper body snug in the gap where Papyrus’ ribs had been spread. His back bumped up against Papyrus’ SOUL, against the beating heart of him. His skull rested on his clavicle and Papyrus rested his chin down upon it, fondly. “YOU’RE RIGHT.”

Papyrus wrapped his arms around Sans, guiding his brother’s hands with his own. He set Sans’ SOUL in the space before them. It spun slowly on an invisible axis. Blue, mostly. Beautiful, mostly. Sans’ hands sat in its orbit. A nudge could send it careening off into the void.

Papyrus wanted to believe that he would give his brother that freedom, that his larger hands cupped around Sans’ were only a suggestion. _PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME. I CAN’T DO THIS ALONE._ But he couldn’t be sure that was true. He couldn’t be sure that what he was giving his brother now wasn’t merely the illusion of choice.

Sans’ hands trembled then went limp. The rest of him followed, melting against his brother, no longer resisting. “i’m sorry. i’m your big brother, ya know? i need to do a better job at that.”

“SANS…”

“i’m just so tired.”

“WELL… MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE A NAP.” The words sounded strange coming from Papyrus’ mouth. He imagined Sans thought the same. He heard him chuckle. “GO ON.”

It didn’t take long. It never seemed to take long for Sans to fall asleep.

For a while Papyrus sat in the stillness. He held his brother. He held his SOUL. Over time, he felt his own sockets beginning to drift shut.

He needed to put Sans’ SOUL somewhere. Papyrus began to place it back in his brother’s open chest, but he stopped himself. It felt wrong somehow, like a violation to replace it while he was sleeping.

After some consideration, Papyrus shifted Sans slightly and slipped the SOUL into his own chest for safe-keeping. It felt alien at first. Not bad. Just strange. Two souls where one belonged.

But Papyrus folded himself around his sleeping brother and soon it was a distant sensation.

Papyrus slept.

And he dreamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, kudos are great but comments always make my day a little better.
> 
> If you'd like to re-Tweet my fic, that'd be neat: https://twitter.com/MsId38783604 I'm not sure how to try and wiggle into the fandom. I know I'm wandering in at an inopportune time. I do miss fandom terribly, and with the world the way it is right now it definitely makes for a nice occasional diversion.
> 
> If you like what I do, please don't be afraid to interact with me. I'm lonely.
> 
> If you don't like what I do... I dunno, man. I'm sorry you felt compelled to read this far.
> 
> I hope my characterization of Papyrus doesn't come off as super unkind. I've always agreed with him knowing more than he lets on, but he also always struck me as being sort of willfully ignorant. He's a good boy. He might be my fav. But he sure seems to know a lot that he's willing to take at face value or not ask too many questions about.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4! Wherein Sans borrows a kid, Alphys operates on friends, and Papyrus dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fuck it. I have no self control. This chapter is about three times as long as previous chapters. I meant for it to stay very vague and dreamlike and skip around various past timelines. Instead, I got stuck writing self-indulgent banter.
> 
> This has turned into some dream within a dream shit. idek.
> 
> I'm not sure if this needs to be said, but I do worry that this chapter may be a little jarring, so... Papyrus is recalling a previous timeline. This particular timeline takes place before Frisk, during Flowey's reign of time-looping, genocidal terror.
> 
> WARNING!
> 
> I am changing the tags a bit, so please mind those. In this particular chapter there's some passing descriptions of surgery and medical procedures. There's also... dubcon towards the end? ...maybe? so... dubdubcon?

The whir of the bonesaw set Papyrus’ teeth on edge even though it wouldn’t be used on him again. Even though it hadn’t actually hurt. The intraosseous infusion meant to ensure it didn’t hurt had been significantly more painful, albeit not for long.

“I-is it working ?” Alphys had asked, her uncertain stammer not at all comforting as she smoothed a bandaid over the injection site on his proximal humerous with trembling claws.

The bandaid was pale pink and plastered with the image of a cartoon girl with huge eyes and cat ears. Sans took a second, pastel green bandaid from its packaging, inspecting it for no discernible reason aside from bored curiosity.

Alphys had narrowed her eyes at him. “Please don’t waste my medical supplies, Sans.”

“sorry. i was just thinking that we must be running pretty low if we’re dipping into your anime merch. these are pretty funny lookin. one could even say they’re—”

“DON’T.” Papyrus had been waiting for a pun since Alphys had used the word “humerous” in a sentence and his brother had perked up like he’d just been given some sort of cue.

“-unsanitary if you got them from the dump.”

Alphys had stepped back then, her eyes on the floor as she turned away. “Well, things are sort of tight right now, so… You just have to make do, you know?”

Things had been "tight” for a while now, Papyrus reflected later as he examined his SOUL, turning it idly in his hand.” There were at least fifty monsters living in the lab.

That was both a bunch of folks and too few in the grand scheme of things. They had brought as many as they could. Many had been reluctant to leave their homes. More refused to go anywhere without finding their loved ones first. Countless families had been separated in the chaos following King Asgore’s death.

Papyrus was glad to have his brother, at least. He missed Undyne, though. As Captain of the Royal Guard, her duty was elsewhere. Papyrus was to watch over the civilians taking shelter in the lab. He was also given the task of keeping an eye on “the nerds.”

He was only confident in his ability to do the latter. He had already been looking after Sans back in Snowdin. Being in a creepy underground lab didn’t make much difference.

Maybe he resented picking up his brother's dirty laundry slightly less. Sans was busy and Papyrus… wasn’t.

Toriel had moved down to the lab. While evacuating Snowdin, Sans had muttered a few apologetic words about needing to borrow something. He was gone when Papyrus turned around. Fortunately he was back only a few minutes later, before Papyrus had a chance to truly worry.

He had Her Majesty with him… as well as a wide-eyed monster child. The latter clung to Toriel’s neck as she held them in her arms and softly spoke soothing words. Papyrus was too busy directing a warren of rabbit monsters into Waterfall to ask if Sans had borrowed a  _ child _ to lure his friend out of the Ruins. He hoped that wasn’t the case… It almost certainly was, but he still  _ hoped  _ that it wasn’t.

It was good that Toriel had been convinced to come. The people loved her. She was good at keeping morale high and at delegating tasks. Papyrus did as Undyne had instructed and helped where he could. Things would likely continue on exactly the same even if he didn’t. Sans, though. Sans needed him.

Papyrus looked away from the SOUL in his hand to check on his charges. Alphys had just cut the power to the bonesaw and was examining her handiwork with a frown that would have been worrying had Papyrus not known her better than that. The days since moving down to the lab had ensured a crash course in getting to know each other better. And what Papyrus knew was that she was smart. Really smart. But hard on herself too. Hard on herself in that way really smart people often are.

If it was anyone else standing over Sans with a bonesaw, Papyrus would be pacing the floor. She had done good work on him only an hour or two earlier, though. He assumed it was good anyway. There was a door in his ribcage just wide enough to fit a hand through and a SOUL with it. The door itself was clear. Not glass or plastic. Something flexible, Alphys had explained. But firm enough to maintain the structural integrity jeopardized by the removal of bone.

The door was weird. Being able to remove his SOUL at will was weird. Everything was weird.

Alphys brushed bone dust from her work station. Papyrus noticed that Sans was watching him. Watching his hands specifically. Watching the SOUL he held there.

“S-sorry,” Alphys stammered as she plunged a hand into Sans’ chest cavity, blushing like she had when doing the same to Papyrus.

Sans didn’t seem bothered. His attention was still on Papyrus. “real rude to keep whipping that thing out, bro. you shouldn’t touch yourself in public like that.”

“WHAT ARE YOU—” He remembered the SOUL that he was holding. “SANS!”

“Who’s touching what ?” Alphys looked up from what she was doing. Her eyes landed on the SOUL in Papyrus’ hand. Her blush deepened. “Oh, my. Y-you know, I didn’t really think about the i-implications. But now that you mention it—” But that thought was cut short as Alphys remembered the SOUL in her own hand, the one she had just extracted from Sans’ chest. “Oh!” She fumbled it. It tumbled from her claws.

Papyrus steadied it with magic. He felt his own SOUL warm in his hand as he did so.

“I’m so sorry,” Alphys said in a mortified rush.

“it’s fine. found it sort of humerous, actually.”

“YOU SHOULD REALLY BE MORE—” Papyrus fell silent and focused on his brother, trying to determine whether he’d said the word humorous with an “o” or an “e.” It had been a stressful day. His patience was hanging on by a vowel.

“I know, I’m sorry.” The SOUL still floated very near to Alphys. She could have grabbed it but didn’t. She was still blushing. “But Sans does raise a good point.”

“i do?”

“Touching someone’s SOUL seems a b-bit… intimate. I mean. I-if it was my SOUL, I…” She cleared her throat and gave her glasses a self-conscious nudge. “I’m not family or anything. It feels inappropriate to… um… Maybe you’d like to help me out here, Papyrus?”

“NOT REALLY.”

“Oh… Can you anyway?” Alphys pointed a claw to the tray on a metal table between them. “Just put it right there.”

“i can hang on to it.”

“You know, you really shouldn’t be talking at all until I’m finished here, Sans.” That did not sound like a rule Alphys had any plans of even trying to reinforce.

Papyrus stood, beckoning Sans’ SOUL closer as he did so. It arced into his hand, flashing bright, a cyan blur that was thrumming and warm when it came to rest in his palm. In his other hand, his own SOUL pulsed an orangish yellow in reply. Slow at first, then incrementally faster, synchronizing. 

“That’s interesting.” Alphys drew closer, yellow and cyan reflecting off her glasses as she circled Papyrus slowly, examining the reaction from different angles. “I suppose it makes sense if we take into account the idea that this code you share came from the same source. ‘Makes sense’ probably isn’t the right phrasing. It makes about as ‘much sense’ as any other potential reaction, which is to say that I am  _ really  _ out of my depth here. Maybe in an alternate universe I knew what would and wouldn’t destabilize reality. I mean, I’m tempted to merge all that anomalous data. But if I were to remove it from your SOULS and allow it to do so independently, it might well be useless to us. It isn’t supposed to exist. Without an organic host to tether it, it could well just poof out of this reality and out of our memories. Transferring all of the data to one host could be equally problematic.  _ More  _ problematic. I don’t know what I would do if one of you poofed out of existence— I mean, I suppose I wouldn’t do anything. I wouldn’t know you had ever existed at all— I wonder if the brother left behind would remember. I could try using a third party as a host, but that would be highly unethical and it seems likely that the two of you have been altered in some way to make you more effective hosts. Our preliminary tests  _ did  _ show that the anomalous code favors you. You know, it’s not unlike a body accepting or rejecting a donated organ. I wonder… I wonder if genetics have something to do with it. Maybe—”

“I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT, BUT YOU’RE MAKING ME VERY NERVOUS.”

Alphys blinked and took a step back, a deep crimson spreading over her face again.

“not to alarm anyone, but I’m starting to get the feeling back in my ribs. is this something we can talk about later ?”

“Oh no.” Alphys ran back over to her operating table, snatching up the  intraosseous infusion gun on the way. She didn’t say a whole lot after that.

* * *

There was a lot of talk in the days that followed. Most of it was between Sans and Alphys. They sat together in the lab room where they had all their open books and laptops and scattered papers. Papers that were too important for Papyrus to straighten but not so important they were safe from coffee stains and chip dust.

Alphys seemed at ease around Sans. Maybe because they spoke the same language. Papyrus didn’t understand half of what they discussed, but that didn’t stop them from lowering their voices when he came around.

And it wasn’t like he was barging in.  _ They  _ were the ones who called him in there. They ran tests. Or Sans did, rather. Alphys had taken a hard stance on handling SOULS that weren’t her own. And maybe she was right to. Papyrus found himself thankful when she turned her back to them, focusing intently on something else, anything else.

Alphys had handled his SOUL when altering his ribcage. She hadn’t hurt him, but her touch had felt cold and strange. Strange, perhaps, _because_ of the cold. Contact with his bone felt nothing like the way someone else brushing up against his SOUL felt.

Alphys had made him shiver, and Sans did too, but it wasn’t because of the cold. He was warm and familiar and something else Papyrus couldn’t put a word to. He felt safe when Sans held his life in his hands. Maybe safer than he did the rest of the time. It had been hard to feel truly safe since moving down to the labs.

Sans took care of marrow samples as well. “you okay, bro ?” He must have asked that at least a dozen times between each step. After several increasingly exasperated confirmations, Sans would rest a hand on his hip and push the needle into his pelvis.

It hurt, but Papyrus was all right. Technically. He was sure the same tests were being run on his brother. He was also sure that Alphys was the one taking his marrow samples. He walked in on her doing it once, her movements efficient, ritualized almost. Their conversation paused before she started and picked up immediately after she was finished. Then they noticed Papyrus and went quiet.

Once Papyrus heard someone sobbing in the lab. It was only the three of them living on this level, and the sound echoed down the empty halls.

Papyrus had just come up from below, where everyone else stayed. There were living quarters down there, away from the machinery and lab equipment. It was crowded, but Papyrus never heard anyone express interest in moving up a floor. The ones that wanted to leave already had. Everyone else wanted to stay as far away from their old lives as possible, deep in the earth. If there was a floor lower, they probably would have gone to it. Maybe someday they would be at ease enough to spread out, inhabit other parts of the lab. Not yet, though. Not for a while.

Papyrus had been helping Toriel in the garden, a hydroponics lab near the small cafeteria. In the past, he had stayed behind afterward and offered to help in the kitchen. He was beginning to get the impression, however, that most of the lab’s residents preferred when he didn’t.

So he had gone back up. Back to the job assigned to him and only him. Back to check on “the nerds.”

When the elevator doors opened and he heard crying, he sprang into action. But Sans appeared to have a handle on things. They were in the lab room he usually found them in.

Alphys was slumped over her desk, sniffling loudly into her folded arms. Sans stood nearby. He had a hand on her shoulder and he was speaking softly, though this time it didn’t seem like he was being quiet to keep Papyrus from overhearing.

After several moments, Alphys turned in her chair and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his lab coat as she continued to sob. Sans’ eye-sockets widened minutely in surprise. He patted her back awkwardly at first, but soon he relaxed. The hand at her back moved in slow, soothing circles instead. He didn’t say anything else. He just stood there and let her cry.

It wasn’t long before he spotted Papyrus in the doorway. He held up a single finger. Either ‘be quiet’ or ‘wait a minute.’ Papyrus did both. He stayed very still, reluctant even to retreat in case Alphys heard him. It seemed like she needed to cry. Papyrus thought he knew the reason for it.

Gradually, Alphys calmed down. She released Sans and settled back into her chair. She was still sniffling, but her breathing was slow and even.

“i think i hear papyrus coming.” Sans shot the door a meaningful look that made Papyrus jump. He scrambled around the corner, waited a couple of seconds, and approached the door as if for the first time.

“HELLO.” He announced himself as he reached the doorway. “I HAVE RETURNED FROM A LONG DAY OF WORK AIDING HER MAJESTY.” He pretended not to notice Alphys’ red eyes as she removed her glasses in an attempt to defog them.

“sounds important.”

“IT WAS.”

“sounds like you and alphys are both due a break.”

“What?” Alphys blinked at the both of them as if only now paying attention to the exchange. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“i’ll wrap up here and join you guys in a minute.”

“Well, if everyone else wants to…” Alphys got to her feet and walked to the door. She gave Papyrus a nervous smile as she approached, but her eyes kept cutting to the floor.

“WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO FIX DINNER?” Papyrus fell into step beside Alphys as she made her way down the hall. “I’VE BEEN WORKING ON A NEW SPAGHETTI RECIPE I THINK YOU MIGHT ENJOY.”

“A new spaghetti recipe? Where are you getting the noodles? I thought— Oh, Papyrus,  _ no _ .”

“PAPYRUS, YES. WORRY NOT. RAMEN IS THE PERFECT BASE FOR CULINARY EXPERIMENTATION. IT CANNOT BE RUINED. ONLY IMPROVED UPON.”

“I’m not sure that’s true… How many packs of ramen have you… improved ?”

“ONLY TWO SO FAR.”

Alphys exhaled, placing a hand over her chest. She seemed more relieved than was strictly polite. “Well, I’m not hungry right now anyway, but thank you for the offer. I just k-kind of want to walk for a little bit and clear my head.”

“I’LL COME WITH YOU.”

They walked in companionable silence until they reached the small break room. It was nothing like the kitchen downstairs, but it did have a microwave, fridge, and a sofa and television for watching anime on.

Alphys sat on the sofa, faux leather squeaking against her hide. It didn’t look like she was in the mood to watch anime.

“YOU KNOW… “ Papyrus had been thinking on what to say the entire time they walked. “UNDYNE IS MY FRIEND.” He left out his own feelings. That he thought she was still alive, that she really could show up any day now. People didn’t like too much optimism down here. He was learning that. “I MISS HER TOO RIGHT NOW. I REALIZE I’LL NEVER FILL HER SHOES, BUT… I CAN WATCH ANIME WITH YOU.”

Alphys stared at him. For a few bone chilling seconds, he worried he had only upset her more. But then she smiled and shifted over on the sofa to give him space to sit beside her. “Thanks. Same here. If you’re ever looking for a friend to do the things the two of you used to do together, like…”

“SPARRING.”

“N-no… Not that.”

“COOKING SPAGHETTI.”

“Maybe.”

Papyrus sat down beside her. He folded his hands in his lap and truly considered her offer. “I… I  _ WOULD  _ LIKE TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON.”

“Huh ?”

“YOU AND SANS ARE ALWAYS SO SECRETIVE WHEN I COME AROUND.” He touched his chest, where he could feel the door in his ribcage through the fabric of his shirt. “I’M PART OF THIS TOO. I WANT TO HELP.”

Alphys fidgeted. “Of course you do.” She looked over her shoulder and down the hall, perhaps checking for Sans.

“IS THERE SOMETHING THE TWO OF YOU ARE KEEPING FROM ME?”

“No!” Alphys reacted so quickly and adamantly that it did nothing to assuage Papyrus’ concerns. She seemed to realize this. “I-I mean… I don’t think it’s anything you’re not meant to know. It’s more of a…  _ conversation  _ that we’ve been having between the two of us.”

“WHAT KIND OF CONVERSATION ?”

“Well…”

“YOU SAID IT WASN’T ANYTHING I’M NOT MEANT TO KNOW.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Alphys gave a soft sigh of surrender. “It’s really not anything important. There’s just some… tests that we want to run. You and Sans are the only subjects we have to work with though, so there’s a lot of prioritizing that we need to do.”

“THAT SOUNDS PRETTY IMPORTANT.” It certainly sounded like something they should have been including Papyrus in their conversations over. His frustration must have shown on his face, because Alphys was quick to raise her hands, palms out in a gesture of peace.

“I-it’s just an ongoing debate we’ve been having. Really. Nothing is set in stone yet. If we need you for any of the tests, we’ll talk to you about it.”

“ _ IF  _ YOU NEED ME ? I THOUGHT SANS AND I WERE THE ONLY SUBJECTS YOU HAD.”

Alphys winced. She scanned the hall one more time before turning back to Papyrus. “There a-are a lot of factors to consider. A lot of pros and cons l-like… um… I don’t want to offend or upset you or anything.”

“I HAVE VERY THICK SKIN.”

Papyrus considered it a heartwarming symbol of their newfound friendship that Alphys only eyed his bony hands and mentioned nothing of puns before continuing. “There are pros and cons to consider. Sans’ SOUL possesses more anomalous code, so it makes for a more tantalizing subject. But these tests we want to run are… They could potentially be quite strenuous. If Sans is out of commission, it’ll be me doing all the work with no one to even bounce ideas off of.”

“YOU COULD RUN THE TESTS ON ME.”

“Yes, that’s the other option. Sans doesn’t like it. And, I admit, neither option is ideal, but…” Alphys resituated herself on the sofa. She lowered her voice to the animated whisper she often used with Sans. “This is where he and I disagree. Personally, I feel you make the better candidate— W-which isn’t to imply that you’re in any way expendable! If anything happened to you, I think that’d be it. We’d be done. I don’t think either of us could…” Alphys shook her head. “More to the point, Sans only has 1 HP. I get all scared I’m going to dust him just taking marrow samples, honestly. It’s absurd.”

“i’m like a delicate flower.”

Alphys shrieked and slapped a startled hand over her heaving chest. Papyrus turned to see Sans leaning against the sofa, his arms folded across the top of it. He hadn’t heard him come down the hall. No doubt he had just appeared there, though there was no telling when.

“Don’t do that,” Alphys snapped once she had caught her breath. “And, no. You’re not delicate, you’re just… weird. Besides, I don’t think ‘delicate’ is a word any of us associate with flowers anymore.”

“just a normal flower then. with 1 hp but limited powers over space-time.”

“WHICH YOU USE TO KIDNAP SMALL CHILDREN.”

“He did what now?”

“that was only once and it was for a good cause.”

“Can we back up just a bit?”

“i brought him right back. he was fine.”

“HE IS,” Papyrus conceded. “BUT A WEEK AGO HE ASKED ME IF  _ I  _ COULD TELEPORT. I TOLD HIM I COULD NOT, AND HE CALLED ME… UNCOOL.”

“aw, c’mon. don’t listen to a stupid kid. you’re the coolest person i know.”

“G-guys… Don’t get me wrong. I have some questions about everything you just said, but I think we’ve gotten a little off-topic.”

Alphys was right. From the way Sans’ eyes cut guiltily to the left, Papyrus could tell that he knew it too. Before his brother could make a concentrated effort at derailing the conversation, Papyrus moved things back on track. “ANYWAY, I AGREE WITH ALPHYS. I THINK I SHOULD BE THE ONE THAT—”

“no,” said Sans, and then he was gone.

Papyrus frowned at the empty space where he had just been. “WELL, THAT WAS IMMATURE.”

* * *

Papyrus and his brother shared a room. It wasn’t large. Papyrus didn’t know what it had been used for before they moved into it. Storage probably.

Papyrus sat on his side of the room that night, in bed but neither lying down nor asleep. He had his SOUL in his hands. It had held his attention for a while, but now he found himself watching Sans’ back as he worked.

He’d had a bed too once, but he had moved it out in favor of a desk. There was a thin mattress propped against the wall that he pulled down when he was ready to sleep. Assuming he didn't just slump over at his desk for the night. That happened a lot.  


“SANS ?”

“hmm?”

“CAN I SEE YOUR SOUL FOR A MINUTE?”

Sans spun in his desk chair, pen in hand. “what?”

“YOUR SOUL.” Papyrus indicated the one he was already holding. “CAN I SEE IT?”

Sans parted his lab coat and raised his turtleneck to reveal the door in his chest beneath. “knock yourself out, weirdo.”

“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT.” Papyrus huffed and held out his hand, palm up and expectant. But then he paused. And then he withdrew his hand. “IS THAT INAPPROPRIATE?”

“hmm?” Sans wasn’t looking at him. He had his shirt him tucked under his chin, holding it up as he awkwardly removed his SOUL from his chest cavity.

“ALPHYS SAID IT WAS INTIMATE.”

Sans let his shirt drop back down, his SOUL in hand. “i dunno. i wouldn’t take it out in polite company or anything.”

“WHY NOT?”

Sans shrugged. “seems kind of like a fleshier monster removing their spleen at a dinner party or— do you remember that one monster that lived in hotland? the one that was always taking his skin off as soon as he got out of work?”

Papyrus shuddered at the memory and the mental image it conjured. “YES. HE WAS SO… MEATY. WHAT WAS HIS NAME, AGAIN?”

“meatman, I think.”

“TYPICAL MEATMAN…” Papyrus looked back down at his SOUL, considering it. Orange, yellow, bright. He thought it was beautiful. But maybe Meatman thought his moist, fleshy mass was beautiful too. “I GET YOUR POINT.”

“do you still want this?” Sans waggled his SOUL impatiently.

“YES PLEASE… DON’T THROW IT! NO- OH MY GOD.” Papyrus glared at his brother as soon as he caught his SOUL. He kept glaring for good measure even when he had turned back to his desk.

In his hands, both SOULS glowed bright. Their magic harmonized.

“…SANS?”

“yeah?”

“I REALLY DO THINK THOSE TESTS SHOULD BE DONE ON ME. IT MAKES THE MOST SENSE.”

“no.”

“YOU’RE ACTING LIKE I DON’T GET A SAY IN THIS.”

“you don’t.”

“WHY NOT?”

“because i’m your big brother.”

“ARE YOU?” The question came from Papyrus’ mouth before he realized it was even something he wondered about.

“what?” Sans half-turned in his chair, successfully pulled from his work for a second time.

“I DON’T…” Papyrus shifted, his bed more uncomfortable than normal suddenly. He looked down at the SOULS, felt them in his palms. Even without the code, they would have echoed one another. Sans was his brother, yes, but… “I DON’T REMEMBER OUR PARENTS. I DON’T REMEMBER BEING A BABYBONES… FOR ALL I KNOW, I’M  _ YOUR  _ BIG BROTHER. I’M CERTAINLY THE  _ BIGGER  _ BROTHER.”

“think whatever you want.” Sans flexed his hand and his SOUL snapped from Papyrus’ grasp, back to him like he had it on a string. He turned back to his work and didn’t turn back around.

* * *

_ That night Papyrus had a dream that the door in Sans’ chest was a puzzle. Sans’ hands were trembling. He kept bumping green instead of red. Papyrus tried to guide him at first. Finally he placed his hand over Sans’, stilling it, and solved the puzzle himself. _

_ The solution was unique to Sans, but Papyrus knew it by heart. He probably knew it better than he knew his own. Last night he had opened him. Again. Fingers shuffling the mosaic in his chest so fast it turned kaleidoscopic. And then it was done. Solved. Organic stained glass. _

_ Sans’ hand was still trembling. The lights of his eyes were on Papyrus, bright and questioning. _

_ “IT’S FINE,” Papyrus promised. He lowered his voice, repeating the words to emphasize them. “It’s fine. He wouldn’t ask you to do this if it wasn’t safe.” _

_ Papyrus waited near the door. They wanted him to wait in the hall, but he swore he would stay out of the way. _

_There was tension in the room. Sans cracked a bad joke at one of the scientists and she laughed, breaking it somewhat. Sans was smiling, but there was never a time when he wasn’t. From the way he held himself, the way he kept glancing from Papyrus to_ **[REDACTED]** , _it was easy to intuit that he didn’t want to be here._

_ And he shouldn’t have been. Papyrus shouldn’t have told him it would be fine. It wasn’t. _

_ No one knew what to do when it all went wrong. When the shadows in his eye sockets seemed to boil, when they spilled over his cheekbones, dripping black and viscous onto the tile. He stepped around the scientist who had laughed at his joke and reached out for Papyrus. But his edges were undefined, softer than they should have been, more malleable. “PAPYRUS!” _

_ The sound of his voice rattled him. He had never heard Sans so loud, so scared. Papyrus rushed forward, but more than one pair of hands grabbed on to restrain him. Someone stepped into his path. _

_Sans fell forward with a miserable sound that was choked and, strangely, wet._ **[REDACTED]** _caught him before he hit the ground. He held him almost tenderly against his chest, one hand on the back of his skull, the other on his SOUL._

✋︎🕯︎💣︎ 💧︎⚐︎☼︎☼︎✡︎📬︎

🕈︎☜︎🕯︎☹︎☹︎ ❄︎☼︎✡︎ ✌︎☝︎✌︎✋︎☠︎📬︎

_ He squeezed. The dust rained down through the holes in his hands. _

* * *

Papyrus woke up gasping. The room was dark, alien.

“papyrus,” said a voice. That was familiar at least. Sans had a hand on his shoulder. He was leaning over his bed, he realized. “hey, you’re okay. i think you were having a nightmare or—”

Sans was cut off as Papyrus yanked his brother down on top of him. He hugged him tight. Maybe a little too tight. He felt Sans squirm to get one of his arms free from the vice-like embrace.

“ok, um…” The words came out strained. Sans got his arm free then squirmed a little more. “you’re all right,” he said once his ribcage could expand and contract to speak again. “you’re in bed, in our room, in the lab. i’m right here. you’re all right.”

“I HAD A NIGHTMARE.” Papyrus’ words were muffled as he spoke them into Sans’ shirt.

“i gathered that.” Sans put his arms around Papyrus, returning his tight hug with a much, much more relaxed one. “but it wasn’t real. you’re fine.”

“BUT…” Papyrus stopped the thought before it left his mouth. He didn’t want to entertain the possibility…

“what ?” Sans waited a moment before gently prompting him again. “tell me.”

Slowly, very slowly, Papyrus sat up. He didn’t let go of Sans. Not exactly. Even when they were sitting across from each other on the mattress, legs folded, he kept one of his brother’s hands in his own. His fingers worried over it as he spoke— though it took him a long time to do so. Sans waited wordlessly, watching him, his eyes bright in the dark.

“I THINK MAYBE… I THINK MAYBE THE NIGHTMARE I HAD WAS OF SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED.” Papyrus could feel his anxiety spike and the tears threatening to come again. Though maybe they had never stopped.

“all right.” Sans spoke when Papyrus didn’t elaborate. “that happens. do you remember what it was about?”

Papyrus nodded.

“do you want to talk about it?”

He shook his head.

“that’s cool. i had something i wanted to talk about anyway.”

“WHAT… WHAT DID YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT?”

“ramen. i know where alphys is stashing the motherload. i think i can smuggle it out gradually. i don’t work for cheap, but i can give you the family discount. from there you can do whatever you want with it. world’s saddest spaghetti, flip it for a profit downstairs, whatever. sky’s the limit. and by sky i mean the ceiling which, as you’ve probably already noticed, ain’t all that high.”

“SANS…” Papyrus could feel the beginnings of a smile coming on. He looked down at the bed in the hopes that Sans wouldn’t notice, but in his periphery he could see him incline his head a little lower, angling for a look at his expression. Papyrus tightened his hand around Sans’. He wanted to be annoyed. He wanted the normalcy of telling him off for his bad jokes and worse comedic timing. Instead, he felt a sudden swell of affection for his brother. Next thing he knew, he was crying harder than before.

“oh, man. i’m sorry. i didn’t mean what i said about sad spaghetti. i’m sure it’ll be great.”

“SHUT UP.” He hated how much he loved his brother in that moment. It made everything hurt so much worse. “I… You… You died. They were doing tests. A bunch of people I don’t know were there. I knew them in the dream. I think I knew them in, like…” Papyrus struggled with the words. He motioned vaguely over his shoulder. “I knew them in the past, just… LOOK, IF YOU CAN JUST DECIDE YOU’RE MY BIG BROTHER, THEN SO CAN I. YOU’RE RUNNING THE TESTS ON ME. IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME, YOU AND ALPHYS CAN TAKE CARE OF IT. IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO YOU, IT’D JUST BE HER. I WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING. IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY DEFINITIVE PROOF TO SAY THAT I CAN’T, I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DECLARE MYSELF BIG BROTHER AND PULL RANK WHEN YOU ARE BEING AN IDIOT.”

“how often is that?”

“OFTEN, BUT I WILL TRY NOT TO ABUSE MY NEWFOUND AUTHORITY.” Papyrus left out the part where he was afraid to. In his nightmare, Sans had looked at him for reassurance, had trusted him, had reached out for him when everything went horrible wrong. And Papyrus had failed him at every turn.

“all right.”

“WE CAN DISCUSS THIS FURTHER IN THE MORNING. I REALLY DON’T FEEL UP TO ARGUING RIGHT N— WAIT. ALL RIGHT?”

Even in the dark, Papyrus could see that Sans’ smile wasn’t a happy one. He exhaled slowly. “i shouldn’t have shut you down like that earlier. you’re right. you should get a say. i’m just being stubborn.”

“AND AN IDIOT.”

“and an idiot.”

“WHICH IS ESPECIALLY UNFORGIVABLE GIVEN HOW INTELLIGENT YOU ARE.”

“please forgive me.”

“THAT DID NOT SOUND LIKE A GENUINE PLEA FOR FORGIVENESS, BUT THAT’S ALL RIGHT. I FORGIVE YOU. I KNOW YOU ONLY ACTED SO CHILDISH BECAUSE YOU LOVE ME AND YOU ARE OVERPROTECTIVE.”

Sans chuckled at that. “yeah.”

“WELL, I LOVE YOU TOO.”

Sans gave his brother’s hand a final squeeze then released it as he stood— or tried to. Papyrus held on and Sans looked back. “what’s up?”

“COULD YOU… SLEEP HERE TONIGHT?”

Sans scrubbed his free hand across his eye sockets. “i wasn’t planning on going anywhere. i sleep, like, three feet away.”

“YOU COULD SLEEP… NO FEET AWAY.”

“you sound like a babybones. i thought you were supposed to be my big brother right now. do i need to read you a bedtime story too?”

“THAT WON’T BE NECESSARY.”

“move over.”

“YOU COULD TELL ME ONE, THOUGH.”

“a story?”

“YES.” Papyrus pulled the covers back and Sans climbed into the space beneath them. There was room enough for him to lay on his back if Papyrus rolled onto his side and pressed his own back to the wall.

“what kind of story?”

“THE EARLIEST MEMORY YOU HAVE OF US.”

Sans made a small, frustrated sound at that. “geez, paps, i don’t know. can’t i just do fluffy bunny or something? i know most of those off the top of my head.”

It occurred to Papyrus that he was demanding a lot of Sans. This wasn’t behavior befitting of a big brother. “NO. THAT’S ALL RIGHT. I’LL LET YOU SLEEP.”

In the darkness, Papyrus heard a sigh. It grew a little brighter in the room as Sans opened his eyes. “you know i don’t remember this stuff much better than you do. it’s hard to know what happened when, and memories aren’t all that reliable to begin with.”

“THAT’S ALL RIGHT. JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU  _ THINK  _ IS YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY.”

Sans was silent for a while. If not for the telltale light of his eyes, Papyrus would have thought he had fallen asleep.

“we were at a parade,” he began finally.

“OOOH, WHAT KIND OF PARADE ?”

“i don’t know.”

“JUST TELL ME WHAT YOU  _ THINK  _ THE PARADE WAS ABOUT.”

“there are going to be a lot of details to this story that i don’t know. if you want to know the earliest memory i have all the details of, i can tell you about what we had for breakfast this morning.”

“THAT’S ALL RIGHT. PLEASE CONTINUE.”

“you made me go.” Sans paused, likely waiting to see if there would be further commentary from Papyrus. When there was none, he continued, “there was something i was doing. studying or homework or something. but your friends were going to a parade, and you dragged me along.”

“HOW MANY FRIENDS DID I HAVE ?”

“ _ so  _ many.”

“WHAT HAPPENED NEXT ?”

“you followed them to the parade. there were a lot of people, though. the crowd kept getting thicker the closer we got. you grabbed my hand. i couldn’t keep up, and your friends kept getting further ahead. i was slowing you down, but you wouldn’t let go of my hand. we lost sight of them after a while.”

“THEY DON’T SOUND LIKE VERY GOOD FRIENDS.”

“heh… no, i guess not. honestly, i don’t think they were really your friends. i think they were people you just wanted to be your friends.”

“OH…”

“we didn’t really have a good spot when the parade started. you figured at least one of us should see it, so you put me on your shoulders.”

“AND YET YOU DON’T EVEN REMEMBER THE PARADE.”

“nope.”

“SEEMS LIKE A WASTE.”

Sans laughed. “yep.”

“YOU KNOW, THIS SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING A BIG BROTHER WOULD DO.”

“it sounds like something you would do now.”

“HMM… YOU’RE RIGHT. I HAD TO PICK YOU UP YESTERDAY SO THAT YOU COULD REACH SOMETHING ON A HIGH SHELF.”

“i was going to get a ladder…”

“YOU’RE STILL QUITE SHORT… BUT ALSO WIDE AND SURPRISINGLY HEAVY.”

“thanks.”

“WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?”

“we went home. i went back to what i was doing before you pulled me away from it.”

“THAT’S ANTI-CLIMACTIC.”

“it was just a day, bro. it doesn’t have to have a climax.” Sans’ shoulders scrunched in an approximation of a shrug. “i’d been having a bad week. i don’t remember why. i just remember that i had bad weeks a lot, and you always cheered me up.” Sans rolled onto his side so that they were facing one another. “what’s your earliest memory of us?”

Papyrus tensed. He didn’t want to answer, but Sans gave him a small and encouraging nod. “THE… THE NIGHTMARE I HAD, I THINK… THE ONE WHERE YOU DIED.”

Sans didn’t press him to continue, but he did hum thoughtfully after a moment. “we’ve talked about how this works before. we’re together. we’ve always been together. if something happens to me or something happens to you, we’ll be together again. everything starts over.

“YES BUT… THAT CAN’T HAPPEN FOREVER. WHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ONE OF US AND THERE ARE NO MORE RESTARTS? NO MORE TIMELINES?”

Sans didn’t have an answer for him, and Papyrus knew that this was something he worried about as well.

“why don’t we try to get some sleep, huh?”

And so they did. Or tried to. Sans had slightly more success. He could fall asleep anywhere.

Papyrus stayed up for a while, watching him, doing his best to replace the image he had in his head of his brother turning to dust with one as Sans was now. Relaxed. Near. Solid when rested his head on his shoulder and felt the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.

He dreamed again.

_ His fingers were on Sans’ ribs, unlocking the puzzle there. _

_ Papyrus was scared at first, but no. No lab. No testing. They were alone. This was before all that. _

_ The door opened. No orange or yellow. Only cyan. Beautiful. It yielded like the skin of a pudding, conforming around his fingertips as he pushed them into its warmth. _

_ Below him, Sans moaned. He raised his knee and arched his back and Papyrus felt the fitted sheet come lose from the mattress. It wrapped around his shin as Sans writhed... _

Papyrus woke to being shoved and to the back of his skull colliding with the wall. He winced. Blinked.

Sans was sitting up and breathing heavily. Gravity pulled at the hem of the t-shirt he had gone to sleep in. It was rucked up around his ribs. Beneath it, soft blue light strobed, bright on the inhale, dimming on the exhale. The same light peeked out through the gaps in his fingers where his right hand was gripping the left side of his chest.

“SANS?”

Sans flinched and looked back at his brother, almost as if he had forgotten he was there.

“DID YOU—” he began.

Sans flung the sheets back, getting tangled in them for a moment in his rush to get out of bed. He stumbled, regained his balance, pulled his shirt down the rest of the way with shaky, uncooperative hands. He staggered to the door and opened it.

“…have a nightmare?” Papyrus finished. But the door shut, and he was alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please validate the hours of my life I spent on this with comments. I want an excuse to finish it.
> 
> ty, to the folks who commented, retweeted, and have chatted with me, btw! :) I no longer feel quite as adrift in fandom purgatory. 
> 
> I believe I mentioned in the notes of past chapters, but I can be found on Twitter: https://twitter.com/MsId38783604 I don't entirely know what I'm doing on it, but I sure do have one.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I thought this was going to be two or three parts? Hilarious. Anyway, here’s another chapter. Shout-out to SkeleShipper for being so nonstop sweet and encouraging. I don’t know if I SHOULD be encouraged in this fontcest-writing kick I’m experiencing, but here we are.
> 
> This chapter is a bit of a fever dream, so I hope things don't get too confusing.

In the weeks that followed, Sans was… distant.

He had always spent most of his days in the lab, but now he was spending more and more of his nights there as well. Papyrus would poke his head in around lunch and then in the evening and then before he went to bed.

“sorry, bro. kinda busy,” was the canned response he almost always gave, even when he didn’t appear to be. Even when Papyrus was fairly certain he had walked in on him taking a nap at his desk.

There wasn’t a lot of middle-ground when it came to dealing with Sans. Either he put his foot down over something or he politely looked the other way. Papyrus wasn’t sure how to deal with the gray areas.

Like erotic dreams about your brother. That’s what it had been. He had double-checked the hypothesis by consulting some reference materials in Alphys’ personal library. All of the skeletons in said reference texts were encased in fleshy bodies and, arguably, human. Even so, his dream seemed to fit the criteria.

Not that he was able to do much cross-referencing on the matter. Apparently, Alphys had been under the impression that he had been looking for something else when he asked to peruse her collection.

“O-oh, you’re looking at that shelf… Hmm… T-that one i-isn’t really my favorite. I-I just like the art. I don’t… Um… I didn’t realize you liked this kind of stuff… That one isn’t canon… I’m n-not into that or a-anything. I just like the art in that one too… You know what? M-maybe you should leave. Yeah. You should leave. I’m sorry.”

Papyrus did try to broach the subject once or twice, but it was like Sans had a sixth sense for when he was about to bring it up.

“hold that thought. i gotta go see alphys about something before i forget.”

But then he would never come back.

Pathetically, Papyrus’ favorite time of the day became the hours he spent as a test subject. Sans didn’t avoid him there, at least.

“are you all right?” he would ask firmly, eye contact direct as he held Papyrus’ SOUL in one hand and a syringe in the other. “are you sure? tell me if we need to stop, okay?”

But Papyrus rarely did. He was sure that if he complained too much, Sans would put a stop to the tests. He would use himself as the subject, and Papyrus would see him even less than he did now.

He had more to keep himself busy, at least. Toriel required more help downstairs and thought it was a good idea that he should practice with her in the kitchen in case she ever needed him to take over things there for a bit. He had the sneaking suspicion that she only doing it to humor him, but he didn’t really mind. It was something to do.

He also spent a fair amount of time with Alphys at night, the two of them watching anime. He didn’t think she was trying to humor him. If anything, she showed obvious restraint, keeping herself from asking questions he could tell that she wanted to ask. She glanced over at him a lot to see how he was enjoying particularly emotional scenes. When she did that, he made a point to bring it up afterward. He wasn’t all that into the shows she liked, but just showing an interest seemed to make her happy.

Not that Papyrus was really selling the enthusiasm lately.

He caught Alphys watching him with a frown and a furrowed brow. There was a big climatic battle happening on screen, but Alphys didn’t look particularly invested in whether or not he enjoyed it. “Are you okay?”

“HMM?” Papyrus sat up a little straighter in the cocoon he had made for himself in a sofa throw. “OF COURSE. WHY WOULDN’T I BE?”

Alphys shrugged. She looked back to the television but not for very long. Maybe earlier on in their relationship she would have dropped things, but they had been sharing a living space for quite some time now. She rarely stammered around him anymore. They were friends, and that meant she felt the need to pry a little deeper, apparently. “Did you and Sans have a fight or something?”

“NO.” Papyrus hesitated. He reconsidered. “I DON’T THINK SO.” What had happened between them didn’t _feel_ like a fight.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“NO.” Papyrus hesitated again, reconsidered once more and amended his answer softly, “i don’t think so.”

After a while, he had to turn down helping Toriel and started dozing off during nightly anime binges. He made excuses. He told Toriel that work with Alphys had him exhausted. He told Alphys that he’d had a long day helping Toriel. They were small lies, relatively speaking. He didn’t like it, but it felt like the lesser of two evils.

Sometimes his bones felt softer to him somehow, malleable almost. But neither Sans nor Alphys noticed anything when they examined him, so it must have been in his own head.

Sometimes he felt as if he’d become unstuck in time. He let his brother and Alphys know. They were interested. They asked him countless questions. And he told them everything, except for how scary it was. Caverns carpeted with dust; vast, empty expanses of darkness; a lab that stood beneath a blue sky and yellow sun, full of life and laughter but also horrible screams behind closed doors.

He saw himself cross a dorm-like room at night to crawl under the sheets with Sans, waking him in the process. He’d grumble a sleepy complaint, but then he’d laugh and pull Papyrus into his arms. They didn’t need to know about that either. He kept those particular images to himself.

Mostly, he felt tired.

But what other option was there? Let Sans take his place? With 1 HP? No. He was trying to be the bigger brother right now. It was out of the question.

“I’M FINE,” he huffed, putting what energy he had into sounding annoyed by how apprehensive Sans was being.

“He does _seem_ fine.” Alphys stood nearest the examination table, frowning up at a display of green, digital numbers Papyrus didn’t know how to interpret.

Sans stood against the wall, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat as if he was trying to distance himself from all of this in every way he could think of. “i don’t like it.”

“Well, you never liked any of this,” Alphys pointed out before turning back to Papyrus. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I KEEP SAYING THAT, DON’T I?” Papyrus crossed his arms over his chest, partly in an act of bravado, partly to keep them from seeing his hands. They were shaking.

Alphys looked back at Sans expectantly. He caved after a few seconds and made his way over. Papyrus dropped his hands to his lap and looked down at his own ribcage, hoping that Sans wouldn’t find his reluctance to look him in the eyes suspicious. He watched as Sans opened the door and slipped a gloved hand inside. He cupped Papyrus SOUL like it was a fruit in Toriel’s garden, one you wanted to inspect but not pick. With his other hand he took the syringe Alphys held out at the ready. He pushed the hollow needle in. He pressed the plunger down. There was a fullness in Papyrus’ SOUL, and then it all fell away.

* * *

_Papyrus was in the room he shared with Sans._

_Had shared with Sans. Sans was gone now. Dust. Papyrus had been so certain that the people they had lived with all these years would never do them harm. There was no such thing as an “acceptable” risk. They were safe. Papyrus had told Sans variations of those words when they were alone, saying it into the slope of his shoulder blades when he stood slumped at the window pensive until Papyrus came and bent over him, hugging him tight from behind._

_But Sans had been right to be worried and now he was gone._

_They said it didn’t matter. Readings said there would be a reset soon. It had happened before. It would happen again. Sans would be back._

_But Papyrus didn’t remember any of the resets that had come before. He tried to stay optimistic, to believe the sympathetic pats on the back and comforting words. But it was hard. It was really hard. It felt like some integral but intangible part of him had broken, a capacity for seeing the good in others that was much reduced after what they had done. After what he had done._

_So Papyrus lay in Sans’ bed and he curled up in his sheets and he waited for the reset._

_People came eventually. Intervened. Gently suggested that there were more useful things Papyrus could be doing while he waited for everything to begin again._

_So he moved to a different room with a different bed. No sheets. Just fluorescent lights and machines that beeped. And reassurances. They were sorry. They were so sorry. But he wouldn’t remember any of this anyway. Soon it would all be undone. Some of what they did now would persist. They would do better next time._

_It was hard to say how long he was there. The room was small and out of the way. A room for medical procedures, but not for healing. People didn’t visit. When they were there, they were there for work, and Papyrus only saw them through a heavily medicated haze._

_Often,_ **[REDACTED]** _sat at his bedside.He pulled up a chair and sat reviewing a folder of work, making soft, thoughtful noises and notes in the margins with a fountain pen Papyrus recognized as the one he and Sans had given him for his birthday. If he saw Papyrus watching, he would give him a smile, a pat on the arm that was meant to be comforting but wasn’t. Sometimes, he said something, but the tide of his consciousness had usually swept Papyrus back out before he had a chance to respond._

_Not that he minded. Papyrus didn’t dream. It was probably the drugs. Sleep was a place that was deep and dark, but it was preferable to the alternative._

_Sometimes he woke to the buzz of a saw. They took pieces of him. It didn’t hurt, watching the blade make fine white powder of his ulna as it was sliced into more manageable pieces. He was being turned to dust manually, slowly. And it was like watching it happen to someone else. His SOUL floated in a protective case only two or three feet away. They did things to it, and then they crowded around the bone fragments. They poked, prodded, looked at the pieces carved from him under microscopes. If they found anything at all, they never shared it with him. Or maybe they did, and he hadn’t managed or cared to remember._

_But then the drugs began to wear off. His bones ached from the inside out, like his very marrow was expanding too much to be contained. He groaned and stretched and then felt a hand on his arm that was familiar. But it wasn’t the one he had grown used to in recent days. He opened his eyes._

“Sans?” His own voice sounded unusually small, but it still got Sans’ attention.

He was sitting in a chair at Papyrus’ bedside. A different bedside. There weren’t any machines beeping. There were sheets. A blanket was pulled up to his chest, heavy and comforting.

His SOUL was still apart from him, but it wasn’t in a container or being handled by cold and dispassionate hands. Sans had it cradled close to his chest in his right hand as the left rested on Papyrus’ forearm. Soft green light made a halo around his cupped palm, bouncing off his white t-shirt, suffusing Papyrus’ SOUL with warmth that eased the terrible ache in his bones.

Sans’ eyes were closed, but he opened them when Papyrus spoke. “hey.”

“You’re dead.”

Sans took that news in stride. “we’ve had this conversation a few times now. i’m almost positive i’m alive.”

“I’m really glad.”

“me too.” Sans gave Papyrus’ forearm a squeeze. “you should get some rest.”

“Am _i_ dead?”

“don’t think so.”

Papyrus started to sit up, but Sans moved the hand on his arm to his chest and pressed down. It didn’t take much force for him to melt back down into the sheets, exhausted. Parts of him still felt restless, though. “Are you mad at me?”

“hmm?”

“Are you mad at me?” Papyrus repeated the question, but he was certain that he already knew the answer.

The tide took him out again.

_“ARE YOU MAD AT ME?” Papyrus asked the question through Sans’ bedroom door, which was closed… and locked. It had been all day, so yes. It was probably safe to say that he was upset. Papyrus understood why he would be, and he had tried to give him his space. But it was past time for dinner, and he was still in there. It wasn’t like him to miss a meal, much less all of them._

_“no.” The voice that came through the door went against all of Papyrus’ assumptions. It also came paired with a sigh, the sort of exasperated sound that indicated he had to at least be a little angry._

_“ARE YOU SURE?”_

_“yes.”_

_“YES, YOU’RE ANGRY WITH ME?”_

_“no. i’m sure that i’m not.”_

_“WAIT…”_

_“i’’m not angry at you, papyrus.”_

_Papyrus rubbed at his humerous anxiously as he idled at the door. He wanted to believe what Sans was saying. He really did. “CAN I COME IN?”_

_For several long seconds there was no response. And then, finally, “i’d rather you didn’t.”_

_“OH.” Papyrus stood there a little longer. Maybe if he waited long enough, Sans would change his mind. But, no. He probably wouldn’t. He usually wanted to be alone when he was upset. Alone time was fine to a point, but Papyrus never let it get out of hand._

_Except, right now, Papyrus was the one who had upset him in the first place. Sans wanted him intruding less than ever. That complicated matters._

_Papyrus backed away from the door and headed for the stairs. He might as well do some cleaning, put the leftovers up. There were a lot of them. He hadn’t had much of an appetite either._

_Papyrus paused at the landing. He turned back and returned to Sans’ bedroom door. “I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO COME IN AND TALK TO YOU. I THINK I SHOULD. WILL YOU UNLOCK THE DOOR, PLEASE?”_

_There was no answer at first. Papyrus was certain that Sans had heard him, but it wasn’t out of the question that he might be ignoring him. He was relieved when he heard the click of the door unlocking._

_Sans’ room was as messy as ever. Papyrus stepped over a pile of dirty laundry and took care not to tip over a teetering stack of books. Sans was sitting up on his mattress, still in the t-shirt and sweatpants he had worn to bed. He was picking dryer lint off of his crumpled sheets, pointedly not looking at his brother. Papyrus stopped in front of him and knelt down._

_“I THOUGHT FLOWEY WAS MY FRIEND. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TOLD HIM WHAT I DID.” He had already apologized, but it felt right to open with it again now that he had Sans in front of him._

_“don’t.” Sans huffed and looked up from his sheets. There were dark shadows around his eye sockets and tension in the set of his jaw. He shook his head. “you didn’t do anything wrong. and i’m not sure your friend did either. sounds like maybe he had your best interests at heart.”_

_“NO.” Papyrus was undecided on whether or not he had truly done something wrong, but he wasn’t the least bit torn about the rest. “HE DIDN’T.”_

_Flowey had been Papyrus’ best friend. Heck, Papyrus was the president of his fan club in Snowdin. They talked for hours daily. They talked about everything: current events, cooking, life… love. Papyrus had confided in Flowey and Flowey had smiled and nodded and encouraged him. He’d even reassured him, “That makes sense. Especially if you’re not physically compatible with other kinds of monsters. People don’t really talk about it, but there are only so many monsters in the Undeground. I certainly don’t know any other skeletons.”_

_But then he had told the secrets Papyrus had confided in him to anyone who would listen. When Papyrus asked him why, Flowey had raised his leaves in an approximation of a shrug and laughed._

_And Flowey was probably right. It was probably something that happened among the more anatomically unique, less common monsters in the Underground and just wasn’t discussed. But that was the thing. It wasn’t discussed._

_People were talking now, and it hurt. Papyrus wanted friends, but Sans already had them. People liked him. At least, they had. That probably wasn’t as true now as it had been yesterday._

_“i shouldn’t have let this happen again. they’re right. it’s gross.”_

_“I DON’T THINK IT’S GROSS.” Papyrus didn’t remember as much of past timelines as Sans did, but he remembered too much to easily relate to people that didn’t share that knowledge. He remembered that this wasn’t the first timeline in which he and his brother had been together in a way that wasn’t strictly familial. “I NEED YOU, AND YOU NEED ME AND…” It was a complicated emotion Papyrus was feeling. He wasn’t sure he had the vocabulary to accurately describe it. “I FEEL LIKE TOGETHER WE’RE SORT OF LIKE A PUZZLE.” He laced his fingers together. “IT’S NOT LIKE THE NEWLYWEDS THAT MOVED IN DOWN THE STREET OR ANYTHING. WE JUST… I FEEL LIKE WE’RE MEANT TO BE A SET AND BEING WITH YOU DOESN’T FEEL GROSS. OR DIRTY OR ANYTHING. IT FEELS LIKE… I DON’T KNOW… LIKE BREATHING, MAYBE? WHICH, OBVIOUSLY, NEITHER OF US_ HAS _TO DO, BUT…” Papyrus looked down at the floor, embarrassed. He probably wasn’t make any sense. “I STILL_ LIKE _TO BREATHE. I FEEL BETTER WHEN I BREATHE.”_

_Another silence stretched out between them. This one was broken by a sardonic laugh from Sans._

_Papyrus’ head snapped up, immediately offended by the reaction he was getting after everything he’d just said. “WHAT?”_

_Sans laughed again and shook his head. “that’s real corny, bro.”_

_Papyrus glared at him. “THAT’S HOW I FEEL!”_

_“yeah.” Sans flopped backward onto his bed, seemingly exhausted despite having done nothing all day. “me too.”_

_Papyrus felt the tension leave his shoulders, relieved. “DO YOU MIND IF I HUG YOU?”_

_“knock yourself out.”_

_“COULD WE… GO TO MY ROOM? YOUR ROOM IS GROSS.”_

_“never mind. i don’t want to be hugged.”_

_“FINE!”_

_Papyrus climbed onto the mattress and stretched out beside him. He pulled Sans into his arms, and they stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, he was sure that his brother had fallen asleep. It surprised him when he spoke, the words rumbling against his collarbone where Sans’ head rested. “i’m not mad at you.”_

Apparently, Papyrus had been asleep. Or something like it. He opened his eyes. He was in a different bed, in a different room, in a different time. But Sans was still where he had been in the dream.

“i’m mad at myself, and i’m frustrated that you weren’t honest with me about the kind of toll the experiments were having on you,” he said, finishing the statement. It made Papyrus wonder if any of what he had said had bled out into the waking world.

“Sans… I…” There was a lot he needed to say. He wasn’t sure where to start. It was difficult to focus.

“don’t worry about it. we’ll talk later.” Sans put an arm around him. “it’ll be fine.”

Papyrus believed him. At least for now. Papyrus leaned into his brother, he breathed deep, and he slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are cherished and motivating. Also, if you enjoy this and haven’t already, maybe check out my other angst-filled fic, Flay Magic that I’ve been simultainiously working on. If it’s your kind of thing. It might not be. Mind the tags.


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